The invention relates to a connector with an integral secondary lock, for example an electrical connector with clips and tongues, in which the secondary lock is secured to the clip carrier or the tongue carrier.
In the use of electrical connectors particularly in industry and automotives, the technique of soft plugging in, which is to say with low force of plugging in or very low force, is more and more used.
The plugging-in force being very low, it is essential that the clips and tongues to be coupled be positioned with exactitude and that their correct position can be controlled before the connection operation.
Connectors use primary locks to lock in position the clips in their housing of plastic material. These primary locks are for example fingers which move aside during introduction of the clip into the housing and which come to constitute a rear abutment, when the clip is in correct position, to maintain it in this correct position. These primary locks are in general disposed within the housing and they are not visible from outside. If in the course of the operation of inserting the clip in the housing, the clip is not brought to its correct position, the primary lock remains in deflected position and does not play its role, but this cannot be detected from outside. Upon an ultimate coupling operation of the connector, the clip can recoil under the pressure of the tongue and the contact cannot be made unless an operator does it deliberately.
To avoid this drawback, there is provided a secondary lock, which is to say a supplemental member, visible from outside or adapted to prevent the mechanical coupling of a connector. Such a secondary lock is in general an external member, which must be emplaced on the housing, and which takes the correct position only if the electrical members of the connector are in the correct position. Ordinarily, these secondary locks are of the slide or drawer type, and they are emplaced on the housing in the course of an assembly operation.